Winning and losing on Mount Everest
(From The Japan Times May 28 issue)

エベレスト最高齢登頂に思う

    Perhaps no one cares either way, except for sentimentalists and greenies. But people should care. Japan is understandably excited about the achievement of Takao Arayama, who on May 17 became the oldest person ever to scale the 8,850-meter peak — he is going on 71 and deserves his accolades. But look at the bigger picture. The man whose record he edged, Yuichiro Miura, was just three days younger than Mr. Arayama when he reached the summit in May 2003.

    It rather diminishes the mountain to think of it as the latest destination of choice for septuagenarians, even exceptionally fit ones. And that is a pity. The more crowded and packaged, and technology-assisted our lives become, the more we need our stern, remote old icons of solitude.

    To be fair, Everest is still pretty stern. Corpses are visible from the trails in the oxygen-thin upper regions known as the "death zone," where lungs grow distressed and minds cloudy and it is all climbers can do to get themselves down safely. In the busiest month of May, 15 climbers have died either going up or going down. That brings the number of fatalities on Everest since New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay conquered it in 1953 to more than 180. It puts this season's death count past the 1996 toll of 12, previously the highest on the mountain.

    Sir Edmund issued a public rebuke May 24 to the more than 40 climbers from different teams who have acknowledged leaving a lone Englishman David Sharp to die, apparently after he ran out of oxygen, while they pressed on by to the summit. The mountain is certainly no Sunday picnic spot, and it does not bring out Sunday-best manners in its devotees.

    So yes, climbing Everest is a ferociously difficult undertaking. At the same time, though, the mountain hasn't seemed truly remote or lonely for a long time. In those 53 years since the first confirmed ascent, more than 2,000 people have succeeded in duplicating the feat, and thousands have tried to.

    Against the 15 fatalities on Everest this season, chalk up the hundreds of survivors: There have been 53 expeditions from the Tibetan side and 29 from the Nepalese side, counting among their numbers American, Australian, Austrian, Brazilian, British, Canadian, German, Korean, Philippine, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Swiss and Turkish climbers — and the Japanese.

    And that's just on the flanks. The throngs on the actual summit this May included not only Mr. Arayama, but the first double amputee to reach the top. They join the Everest circus stars of yesteryear: the first blind climber to summit, the youngest (a 15-year-old), the first married couple, the first to ski down, the first to snowboard down, and so on. Accurate or not, the impression of Everest as no match for human resolve (and money and lots of really fancy equipment) just keeps on growing.

    There are nothing but downsides to this. For one thing, it surely encourages far too many mediocre climbers to hazard an Everest attempt. How many of those that do make it to the summit would never have come close without being "nannied" up there as part of expensively outfitted and expertly led expeditions?

    And therein lurks another problem: Those expeditions do not bring down nearly as much gear as they tote up. Hence Everest's growing reputation as a trash magnet — a problem long familiar to lovers of Mount Fuji. Last summer, a team of Chinese volunteers collected 10 tons of garbage above 5,000 meters — mainly discarded oxygen bottles, stoves and tents — on the Tibetan side alone.

    According to the nonprofit Katmandu Environmental Education Project, the situation has improved slightly following some well-publicized clean-up expeditions, including those led annually for several years by Japanese climber Ken Noguchi. Still, these are all volunteer efforts, and it's hard to know how long they can stem the tide of trash left by the endless stream of climbers.

    Last, but hardly least, there's the sense of spiritual loss that attends the taming of Earth's wildest places — the oceans, the forests, the deserts and above all the mountains, which were once held sacred for a good reason: They stood closest to heaven. That is why, even as we celebrate Mr. Arayama's personal conquest, we might want to reflect as well on the value of leaving a few things on this planet forever unconquered.

The Japan Times Weekly: June 3, 2006
(C) All rights reserved

    5月17日、今年71歳を迎える登山家、荒山孝郎さんは世界最高齢のエベレスト登頂者になり、日本中が沸き立った。荒山さんの記録は、プロスキーヤーの三浦雄一郎さんが03年5月に作った最高齢登頂記録を3日上回った。

    エベレストは今も死の山で、上方の酸素の希薄な「死の領域」では、遭難者の遺体が散見される。

    この5月には、15人の登山家がエベレスト登頂中または下山中に遭難しており、1953年にニュージーランドのエドマンド・ヒラリー卿とシェルパのテンジン・ノルゲイが征服して以来、遭難者数は180を越えた。

    ヒラリー卿は5月24日、エベレストの頂上付近で酸素欠乏のため倒れていた英国人男性に気づきながら救助せず、登山を続けていた計40人以上の登山隊を非難する声明を出した。

    エベレスト登頂は今も困難だが、ヒラリー卿の偉業以来、2000人以上が成功している。

    記録的人数が遭難する一方、荒山さんばかりでなく、両足義足の男性も含め多数が今シーズンは登頂に成功している。

    エベレスト登山に伴うゴミ問題も深刻である。昨年夏、中国のボランティア団体が、チベット側の5000メートル以上の部分で、10トンのゴミ（酸素ボンベ、ストーブ、テントなど）を回収した。

    NPO のカトマンズ環境教育プロジェクトによれば、日本人グループなどの環境浄化運動により、エベレストのゴミ問題は近年、多少は改善しているというが、多数の登山隊が残す膨大なゴミをどれだけ食い止められるか目途は立っていない。

    海洋、森林、砂漠、山岳などは天と地の接点として神聖視されてきた。せめて地上の自然の一部を永久に征服せずに残しておく知恵について、人は考えてみるべきではないか。